YourHub.com \\ Tri-Lakes \\ Stories \\ Around Town

A journal from The Congo, No. 7

e-mail to a friend | print this | link to this

Contributed by: Greg Easton on 3/18/2008

I finished my line check and passed the check ride, and now have been flying solo for the past couple of weeks. I really enjoy the flying much more now that I am alone in the cockpit. I am still working on giving the safety briefing in French, but I feel confident and comfortable with the airplane and the flying and look forward to each day and each new trip.

It's the rainy season here now (March, April and May); it rains every day. But just one hundred miles north of here, on the other side of the equator, it's the dry season. That's hard for me to grasp. It's like having winter in Colorado at the same time it's summer in Kansas. But it is the equator I guess. The Congo River drains the second largest watershed in the world. It is unique in that it has no seasonal fluctuations because half of the watershed is north of the equator and half is south of the equator. So it is always rainy season over half of the watershed and dry season over the other half.

It is cooler during the rainy season. The evenings get cool enough to require a sweatshirt. I use a blanket on my bed at night, and wear a sweater to the airport in the mornings. I have actually seen some of the locals wearing parkas! The rain also clears out the humidity and the views of the volcano and the sunsets are much better than during the very hazy dry season. Last week, after a mid-afternoon thunderstorm rolled through, there was snow quite visible on the two volcanoes in Rwanda, both of which are well over 14,000 feet tall. (Again, hard for me to believe it can snow on the equator.)

We flew five Dutch film makers from Goma to the town of Isiro, which is up north close to the border with Sudan. They were very nice, gave applause for my smooth landing and insisted on getting our pictures. They were going to Isiro to investigate the prospect of making a documentary on the area and the horrific atrocities committed by the MaiMai's back in 1994, in which tens of thousands of people were killed. The area has been mostly peaceful since then, but just recently the unrest has started again. I have a lot of respect for people like that, who go into an area of strife and obvious danger for the purpose of increasing world awareness of the terrible things that are happening here.

The runway in Isiro is nicely paved and 8500 feet long. It has HIRL's (High Intensity Runway Lighting), ILS (Instrument Landing System) and AFIS (Aerodrome Flight Information System). It was like stepping out of the Congo and into the Twilight Zone. This airport could have been anywhere in the US and would fit right in, but, in the Congo, it was completely out of place. I found out from one of the locals that it was built, or rebuilt, just to accommodate a visit from the Pope. He was there, I don't know exactly when, to recognize a local nun who was canonized to sainthood. I don't know her story, but her picture was painted on the front of the terminal building.

Almost as soon as we got out of the plane we were accosted by two locals in street clothes who insisted that we come with them. We ignored them and went to the airport authority to pay the fees. When we came out of the RVA office, there they were again telling us that we had to come with them. We asked them who they were and why we needed to follow them and they said something about "customs". So we followed them to their "office", which was no more than a desk set up in a hallway between two buildings. Above the desk was a hand painted sign in French. The only word I recognized was "Official". It was such a farcical charade it was almost humorous. The man behind the desk insisted that we needed to have some kind of paperwork, which we had never heard of, and that the absence of this paperwork would cost us a $10 fine. We told him we didn't have the papers he was looking for and weren't going to pay any fine. This communication took an inordinate amount of time and effort because we were speaking in English and he was speaking in French. We finally called someone in our office who could speak French to this guy and they chatted for a good five minutes. As it became more and more obvious that we weren't going to pay the $10 "fine", the five or six cronies who were standing around to give support to the head man started to disappear as they lost interest. He finally let us go when we agreed to bring the necessary paperwork the next time we were in Isiro. We figured that would work because we have never flown there before and probably never would again either. During the 30 minutes we were argueing with this "customs official", there were two planes that landed, dropped off passengers and left, without visiting the "customs office".

We had a similar experience when we first arrived in Goma. We had just gone through immigration where we had our passports stamped and were getting back in our car when someone, who appeared to be just standing on the street, came up to us claiming to be a customs official. They wanted to look through our bags, or we could pay them $5 and avoid the search. We were totally green at that point, but it just didn't seem right. So we just ignored him. I didn't feel threatened in either situation. It's more of a nuisance than anything, but it does illustrate what the locals will do to try to get money from the wealthy expats.

An operating table weighs 572 pounds. I know because I delivered one to the small village of Shabunda, along with five doctors from CRS (Catholic Relief Services). It took 7 people to load the crated table into the plane, but there were only 4 1/2 (I'm the 1/2) to get it off. The doctors and their supplies were financed by USAID. I have seen the USAID symbol on supplies used by a lot of the NGO's. They don't provide the aid services directly, but finance the food and supplies the NGO's use to do their work. I dropped the doctors off on Monday and they were scheduled to be picked up on Wednesday. They asked if I would be back to pick them up; I sensed that they didn't want to be there any longer than they had to. I was looking forward to the return trip, but, as it turned out, when I went to start the airplane Wednesday morning the battery was dead and the trip got canceled. I truly felt obligated to carry these doctors out of the jungle and was disappointed when I was not able to. I flew the plane to Entebbe for maintanence instead, using a borrowed battery. I'm still here in Entebbe, waiting for clearance paperwork from Congo. But, that's another story.

I enjoy hearing news from home. It's hard to keep up with things from half way around the world. Hearing even the little things helps me feel connected.

[Report this as objectionable content.]

SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story